


after all that we been through

by TempestRising



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, OT4, Protective boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8894371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: He'd let it get to him. Somewhere along the way they'd begun to care about what people thought, and Liam bulked up and Louis quieted down and Harry grew up and Zayn checked out and Niall was nervous, all the time.
  a day in the life at the end of OTRA where Niall's exhausted and the boys are protective and they all just want to make it through this show without spilling any more of Niall's blood.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm about six years late to the One Direction party and catching up via YouTube and fanfiction, which is the only explanation I can give for why I thought 5 SOS were on the OTRA tour. They're cute though.

It happened during Niall's solo. It had been bad all day. No one could sleep. There were too many girls outside yelling, and then their hotel phones started ringing, chasing the boys from room to room, Harry leaving his blaring phone to sleep with Liam, both boys getting up to stumble around the halls in search of quiet, and they found Niall. "We could sleep on the bus," Niall suggested, near tears. It was only exhaustion that pushed the blond to look like this, drawn and desperate.

Louis came into the room. "It's too loud on the bus," the oldest groaned, flopping face-first next to Harry.

Niall did start crying then, not even realizing, so tired he saw purple bruises every time he closed his eyes. Liam draped an arm over his shoulder, pulling Niall's head into his chest. The four of them sat on a big bed in a big room, unable to sleep as the air shook with the noise outside.

"Remember when we always shared?" Harry asked, putting one hand on Niall's shaking back. "Doubled up. For years. And one left over."

The ghost of Zayn rose between them. And Liam said, "The left over room turned into the hooking up room."

"You mean Harry's room." Louis ducked the pillow Harry threw at him.

"Dunno why we ever got our own rooms, to be honest," yawned Niall, his face sticky with tears, "Louis's always on the bus. And I'm always with Liam." He got his head pet for that. Since Liam's break up he'd seemed to need something warm and alive near him to sleep.

"Harry likes having his own room," Louis chipped in.

"Shut up," Harry protested, ears burning, but there was no heat in his words, knowing Louis well enough - he'd hope, after all these years - to know his need to cut tension with a joke.

There was a knock on the door. "Nialler?"

Louis untangled himself from the pile and opened the door to reveal Michael, hair looking even spikier in the low light. "Is it a party, then?" the Aussie asked, peaking around at the limbs intertwined on the bed.

"Couldn't sleep," Niall pushed himself off Liam's chest.

"Tell me about it," Michael snorted."I figured our little sleep fiend might need some help on this pleasant evening."

"What've you got?" Louis seemed suddenly more interested in this conversation at the same time that Harry said, "no drugs," glaring at Louis, who shrugged in the doorway.

"Well, I know who the killjoy in this group is," Michael said as he fished something out of his pocket.

"It used to be Liam," Niall was upright now, "when he was more a stick in the mud, and Harry was less healthy."

Both Liam and Harry said, "heyyy..." and Michael laughed. "Anyway, it's a little less cool than drugs."

"Earplugs?" Liam said, taking a proffered pair. "No offense, but it if was that easy we would have..."

"Just try them," Michael doled out the remaining plugs. "These are magic. Downunder aboriginal magic."

"You are so full of shit," Louis said, fondly, squishing the plug into his ear. And then...silence.

It must have been a sight, the four most recognized boys in the world, looking up in surprise and bone-deep relief.

Niall slumped, eyes already fluttering closed, breathing out a soul deep sigh with his head on Liam's chest, soles of his feet pressing against Harry's shins. Liam picked idly at the blond's hair and mouthed thank you at Michael, who was already leaving.

"I told you," the younger boy whispered, closing the door, "magic."

So they slept, and were still woken up too early. Even Liam, who was usually the most chipper, found seven-thirty hard to swallow. "You lot are hard to find," said Basil, opening the blinds. "Did you hear that crowd?"

"No," groaned Louis, imbuing the word with so much sarcasm that the other boys snorted, and began the process of untangling themselves from each other. "I'm hopping in your shower, Ni," Louis said, and Niall grunted, reaching for his guitar and strumming as he tuned A.M. which Harry and Liam hummed as they left. It was the best moment of the day,a soft moment, the residual warmth of the boys in the bed, the quiet, Niall not quite alone - Louis singing quietly in the shower. Niall wanted to bottle this feeling; the peace, the gentleness.

He thought of that early morning later, when they were in interviews. TV shows, radio, journalist after journalist, and most of the time he was with the other boys, but sometimes they were peeled apart, two and two, Niall and Harry, Liam and Louis (never Niall and Louis, they learned that early, how Louis would never answer the questions and Niall would laugh at whatever shit Louis said as if he were the funniest man in the world). But they ended with all four of them together, Niall's stomach rumbling. Nearly done now. Nearly lunch, then maybe a nap before showtime.

"You've been busy," the amicable-looking journalist remarked, flipping open his pad to take notes even though there were three cameras right there. Niall thought it was cool. Old-school. "I pulled the short straw and had to wait."

"Save the best for last," Liam said, nonsensically.

"Interviews for four hours is not the kind of glamorous lifestyle my little girls think you have."

"What are your girls' names?" Harry. Always polite.

Niall's stomach rumbled again and he flashed the interviewer an apologetic smile, zoning out as Harry and farmer Joe or whoever whet back and forth about his daughters. Niall tried to find the thread of the conversation but kept losing it when his stomach rumbled and Liam smirked and Louis flicked him.

"Nearly done, boys," the interviewer said, flipping through his notebook. "I just wanted to talk about - really quick - some rumors. Just true or false from you guys. Do you ever take a look at all these stories?"

"You know, from the beginning people have been reporting that one of us die," said Louis, "or all of us die. And we get a call from the mums because, like, sometimes there so much detail that you wonder if you aren't dead."

"Why dies the most?" Farmer Joe smiled.

Zayn, actually, constantly dying of drug overdoses, but obviously as a foursome they couldn't, wouldn't say that. "Most recently it was me." Niall volunteered, since he hadn't really said anything to Farmer Joe, who'd done nothing wrong except draw the interview spot just before lunch. "And I got this call from Haz -"

"I was in LA!" Harry protested. "How was I supposed to know?"

"He was writing me eulogy," Niall grinned. He rubbed Harry's knee, hoping the younger boy knew that Niall found it beyond sweet, how Harry had acted nonchalant on the phone even as his tone screamed relief. You kind of know that your friends would be sad if you died but almost nobody got to experience it while still alive.

"Just a few more rumors," the interviewer said, "Harry, is it true you have a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on your thigh?"

"I can confirm that Hitler does not appear anywhere on Harry's body," Louis piped up. Niall dissolved into giggles.

"And how do you know that, Tommo?"

The interviewer cut Liam off before he could get further than a question and a suggestive eyebrow wiggle. "Louis, this one's for you," the interviewer was doing an admirable job of keeping them all in line. "The Sun wrote that you spontaneously grew extra nipples to match Harry's."

That got Harry laughing almost as hard as Niall. Liam put on his patented Confused Puppy Face, "all these spontaneous body parts in the band! Between my kidney and Louis's nips we could be a regular side show."

"Don't say nips, Li, Jesus," Louis tried to put an inch of space between them (difficult to do on the tiny couch) as if embarrassed. "And we're supposed to answer our own questions, lad."

"The Sun also printed that Niall can't sing," Farmer Joe said, face still open and amiable.

Niall waited a long, long second for Liam to jump in, which is maybe why his, "oh, that one's true, I've been autotuned for the last five years," falls flat.

"That'll be the headline then," sighs Liam, "'Niall Horan Admits to Being Autotuned.'" And they all laughed, and the moment passed and the interview continued.

And then, when they finally have lunch, and they're kind of chatting but mostly quiet and chewing and on their phones, there it is, all over Twitter.

A part of Niall always finds it fascinating, how an interview with a tiny, local, unknown guy can be retweeted and commented on and reacted to so rapidly, so many times. Thousands of mentions a minute as the entire world, it seems, chimes in on the new debate of Can Niall From One Direction Actually Sing.

The first one Niall sees is I knew it lolz even autotune couldn't correct his crap voice immediately followed by Did everyone see this? and a link to a recording of what he'd said not thirty minutes before.

He put his phone down on the table and stared at the burger that had seemed so appealing, stomach so twisted up in knots he was nearly sick at the sight of it. He put a hand to his mouth and that's when Liam, also, apparently, scrolling through Twitter, saw it.

"What did I tell you, Nialler?" he said, showing his phone to the rest of the table, "I said it would be a headline."

"Fuck, you're trending," Louis pressed play on the video and they all listened to Niall's stupid joke answer, and Niall wished that the ground would swallow him whole.

Harry spoke up. "The problem is, you don't really sound like you're joking." He held up one hand as the other boys rounded on him, "obviously we all know it's a joke, Niall's got a lovely voice."

"It's not a big deal," Louis said, eyes on Liam's phone as Niall's mentions went up, hundreds a second. "Look, we have a show tonight, right? So he'll just sing. I dunno. Accoustic, or something. Or during the covers."

"We shouldn't acknowledge rumors!" squeaked Liam, aghast. "I say just ignore it."

"That's what you always say," Harry observed. "Ignore it or punch them. There is no in between."

"You cold?" Louis asked, squeezing Niall's shoulders, and the Irish boy shrugged. He hadn't noticed the goosebumps until Louis started rubbing them. "You're alright, love. Chin up, here comes the cavalry."

Niall put on his best game face as a team of suits walked into the room and gestured to Niall. He got up, and the other boys clucked in sympathy. "You're all right," from Louis, a "go get 'em," from Harry and a pat on the shoulder from Liam, who said, "we'll be here when you get back."

That afternoon was filled with mini meetings, which meant that by the time Niall was done he felt like a plant whose leaves were browning. He yawned and tried not to check his phone as his hair was cut and re-dyed (sometimes he wanted to go back in time and whisper in sixteen-year-old Niall's ear to skip the blond, brown's okay, brown's fine). He thought about blond tips and world-wide trending hashtags and the fact that while he was in his third meeting he'd gotten a text from Zayn, who, now that the tour was wrapping up seemed to be making an effort to keep in touch, probably instigated by Liam. Niall looked at the text (hey babes you okay?) and didn't reply out of solidarity to Louis. Louis was on his side and Zayn wasn't and though a day would come when he'd have to intervene in that particular feud, it was not this day.

Niall wandered around backstage while 5 Seconds of Summer went on, trying to get psyched up, show-ready, jumping around. Harry was smiling when he found him, and did the Ross-Geller calm-down hand thing. "Your knee," he said, because Harry worried about Niall's knee roughly 700% more than Niall did, but whatever, he bounced on the balls of his feet instead.

Luke was off stage first. "Oh, look guys," he said, the crowd noise so loud he had to yell, "it's our number one fan."

"Who can't sing," added Calum, slapping Niall's shoulder.

"What a poser." Michael smiled gently.

"You're the worst," Niall began, and was cut off by all four of them hugging him at once, guitars digging into his hips. Someone planted a sloppy kiss on his forehead. "Gross," said Niall, who loved every part of it.

"Hey! Niall's still ours!"

That was definitely Louis, and then definitely Louis was wrestling Niall away from the other band. "We agreed," Louis practically sang. "Every other weekend, and bank holidays."

"In times of crisis, rights revert back to us," Michael was the only one who seemed to be able to keep up with Louis's odd sense of humor.

"That doesn't even make sense!"

Niall watched them bicker, the argument devolving rapidly into merry shouts, ending when Louis threw water on Michael (who couldn't retaliate, not with One Direction two minutes form show). "Get out of here, guys," Niall finally said, shoving Ashton and Luke further backstage when the latter tried to kiss him again.

"Come here, boys," that was Liam, who took their pre-show circle dead serious, never missed a performance, always ready with a little pep talk that one day, Niall swore, he'd catch Liam practicing in the shower.

So they leaned in, four heads knocking together, hands draping across shoulders and waists, drawing each other close, slotting together like tried and true puzzle pieces. Niall waited for Liam to start talking. And waited.

"Hear that?" Liam said at last. How could Niall not hear it? The screams of eighty-seven thousand people. A home crowd. "Knock 'em dead." And they all waited, expecting more, screams mounting as the countdown came on.

"Love you," Niall said, since no one else was talking and he felt like he needed to say something about the full, warm feeling in his chest and stomach, clogging his throat.

"What a softie," Louis murmured, ruffling Niall's new hair. And hen there was a downbeat. And they were on stage.

Niall tried to describe the feeling to his parents and friends, in interviews. How he'd put up with all of it, the scrutiny, the loss of privacy, the mobbing. Just for this feeling. The stage so loud it rang in his in his marrow, so loud he couldn't hear himself breathe. Cameras flashing like stars.

It happened during "Story of My Life" which Niall could sing in his sleep and sometimes did. It was a hugge stage, and Louis was at the end of the runway, Harry thrusting on the left, Liam in the middle, Niall on the right wing. He smiled down at a little girl, no more than five, singing every word from atop her father's shoulders. And he was looking down when something hit him, hard, in the chest. Splattered open hotly.

So many things were thrown on stage that sometimes they were bound to hit (how many times had Harry been pelted with dildos?). Niall had barely looked down when something hit his face.

It was a tomato, he smelled it, a gone-off tomato all over his face. There was a shout from somebody at hs feet, one of the stadium's security, and Niall took one step back, thinking if he could get off stage, get a towel...and then something hit him in the back.

More shouting, but Niall had his eyes tight closed, willing himself to breathe and keep moving, muscle memory three paces over, two back, if he could jsut change his shirt.

That downbeat, his solo, Niall's mic limp in his hand and he heard the silence stretch like elastic before Harry began to sing. He shrugged off hands, already stripping his shirt. "I'm fine," he said, and repeated it until it sounded good. "I'm fine." Moving further back, if he could get to his room, he just needed a new shirt...

"Ni?"

This wasn't his room. He tried to focus. Someone's hand on his arm. "What happened?" Lke's voice, so high, and sometimes Niall forgot how young he truly was.

"Is that tomatoes?"

"Get a flannel, Ash."

"You wanna sit down, Ni?"

"I just need a shirt," Niall said, "and then I can..."

"Fuck" someone spat. "He's shaking."

"He's cold. Feel his hands. Like ice."

"I'm fine," Niall said, his voice sounding strangled. "I just - a shirt -"

Behind him, the door began to open and Niall let out a little moan at the thought of having to explain this to anyone. "Not now!" called Luke, and sometimes Niall forgot he could sound very grown-up when he wanted to.

But the door opened anyway. "Fucking hell," Louis was eerily quiet, "Is that blood?"

Niall took two steps sideways and Louis's arms were around him. "Tomatoes," someone corrected.

"No," Louis touched Niall's back and he hissed in a breath. "Some of it's blood."

It felt like his voice was very far away, filtered through sea caves and storms, "I think some of them threw rocks."

Calum's voice: "Are you okay?"

Louis: "Yeah we're all - it was just Niall."

Niall squeezed his eyes shut. He could still hear the crowd screaming. It sounded different now.

A cloth against his cuts. Another on his face, smoothing away the bits of splattered fruit. Something soft in his hand, and Niall started pulling on the shirt.

"You don't have to," Louis said. "There's only three songs left. We can end early. I don't care."

He didn't, it was the best thing about Louis, he was that person who, once he became your friend, was instantly loyal, loyal above all else, people more important that the performance, and Liam and Harry cared long and deep but to them the stage was sacred. "I'm fine," Niall said, "I'm fine," if he said it enough it would be true. He took a step forward and bit down his hiss.

"There's blood on his back!"

"Nialler," Louis whispered. He must have seen something in the Irish boy's face because he held out his hand, and Niall took it. "Harold's telling jokes." Louis glared at the people who tried to talk to them as they walked slowly back on stage, his finger strong and soft looped around Niall's.

And there was Harry, standing at the end of the platform, not smiling, his words clipped.

Someone had cleared the tomatoes off the stage, but Niall was still impossibly grateful when Louis led him to the opposite side. Deposited him on one of the steps. "Don't get up." Louis warned. "I mean it. Take it easy."

"What happened?" Liam knelt, and Niall smelled his aftershave and sweat and felt better. "I just looked over and you were running off stage."

"Someone threw rocks," Louis hissed, "and tomatoes. He's fucking bleeding." Louis had a habit of talking about people as if they weren't there. "I say we do 'You and I' and 'Best Song Ever' and that's it."

"Okay," Liam said immediately, even though if there's one person who hated plans changing, it was ol' Payno. "I'll tell Haz. You tell the band." Then Liam leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Niall, forehead to forehead. The older boy hugged with his whole body, fast and fierce but this was gentle, as if Niall was very precious and very breakable. "You're okay, love. Two songs and we're out of here."

"Go save Harry," Niall said, making himself pull away.

He'd been stuck immobile for far too many of their shows and always hated it, the others drifting away, feeding off the crowd, while he stayed stuck on his ass, unable to get out of his own head. But this time was different. This time they came back.

Harry was there first as Louis and Liam did their double-act patter. "They took away the girls that hit you," he said, "I saw them."

"Okay." Niall smiled, even though he didn't really care about that.

"I'm sorry," Harry's voice so low, distraught, eyes trained on Niall's bloody back.

"You did nothing wrong," Niall said firmly. And then said nothing, because there were the lights, the downbeat, and he had to sing.

It wasn't bad. Wasn't great. But he sounded fine and he took Zayn's first solo like he'd been doing the last three shows and smiled at the crowds because there was a little girl on this side, too. And Harry stayed next to him, warm where their shoulders touched.

Eventually it ended, and Liam hauled Niall into their circle so that he was in the middle of the hug. "Put your arm around me," Liam said in his ear.

"I'm fine," Niall protested.

"Your back's bleeding," Harry's voice. Firm. The crowd too loud. "Li, look, it's all red. It's bleeding so much. Niall - Niall!"

The stars of the stadium gave way to blackness.

He woke up to Louis shouting. "So we're supposed to say nothing?"

"We say something," a male voice replied. " _You_ don't."

"Hey, love," Liam's fingers felt different from anyone else's. Rough and calloused from weights and attempting guitar. "Nice to see your pretty eyes."

Niall looked over Liam's shoulder. He didn't recognize the room they were in, but then again he rarely could. He barely remembered what time zone they inhabited. Didn't want to call home because he couldn't remember if he'd wake them up.

Something round on his back flared white hot with pain. "Squeeze my hand," Liam said, "a doctor's working on your back. You have some pieces of rock stuck in, that's why you bled so much. I don't think Calum's getting his shirt back."

Niall winced and felt long fingers in his hair. "Hi, Harry," he murmured, squeezing Liam's hand too hard as the pain flared. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Liam said, "it's fine."

Louis kept shouting but even that sounded normal. The prodding on his back stopped and he felt the cool sting of cream instead. He squeezed again. "Sorry, you don't have to -"

"Don't be stupid," Harry murmured, "Of course we're here."

Louis threw himself into a chair next to Liam. "They can't do this. They can't throw rocks and tomatoes and hurt Niall and get away with it."

"They're not," Harry soothed. "They're being charged with assault. You just need to keep off Twitter. Don't pick fights."

In his pocket, Niall's phone buzzed and Louis extracted it for him, face turning to stone as he turned it so the others could see the screen. Just a name, the picture disappearing two phones ago. Zayn.

"Well, answer it," Harry said, "he can't move his arms."

Louis looked at Niall, waited for him to jerk his head in a nod. He still hesitated. Then. "Hey," he said, "he's okay. He'll be okay. Some fans threw rocks. There was blood, and - that's what I said! This shouldn't be happening! It's not, like, it's not safe. How'd you hear? Where are you?"

Niall smiled as Louis wandered away to bond with Zayn over their mutual indignation. Even if they were at each other's throats on Twitter again, when all this was over maybe it would be possible for them to stand in a room together, to start rebuilding all the bridges that had been burned this year.

Harry never stopped petting his head. "You okay, Ni?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Just a bit embarrassed, you know. Headlines tomorrow will be a treat."

Liam, who had been watching Louis with an unreadable furrow of worry between his eyes, turned around. "Didn't know you cared about that stuff. You never said..."

"You cared this morning," Harry said. "In the interview...that Tweet. You were upset."

"You're too perceptive."

Harry smiled gently. "Look who swallowed a dictionary.' Then, serious again, "You can't worry about it. I know it's hard. We -" gesturing at what was left of their band, the fivesome-turned-foursome that were still, somehow, luckily, literally the most mentioned people on the planet. In that gesture was all the past rumors and leaked stories, the relationships broken and loyalties split because of too-fervent so-called reporting. "We know it's hard." Harry said, quietly.

Niall's embarrassment deepened to guilt. "You're right," he said, voice thick, throat clogged. "Course you're right, Haz. You've all had worse. I'm being stupid." He couldn't believe he was complaining to Harry, who was scrutinized with a fine lens, who himself rarely complained, just got taller and thinner, quieter, who went out with different crowds and wore loud clothes and still curled in on himself like he was young and small and could disappear in the couch creases.

"No no no," Harry interrupted, helping Niall sit up so he could get bandages wrapped around his torso. "I'm not saying this isn't awful. It is. It's -" he blew out a breath, blinking fast, "it's _so_ mean. When Li saw what happened he wanted to give the crowd a speech about treating people how you want to be treated."

"I think we should open every concert with that speech," Liam said. He and Louis, who'd hung up the phone, were trying to rub feeling into Niall's knee. They'd all gotten too good at the PT stuff last tour, when the pain flashed hot and there wasn't enough time for surgery and Niall was choking back tears as he tried to sleep, willing his leg to stop spasming.

Why did this feel worse than that?" Because he'd let it get to him. Somewhere along the way they'd begun to care about what people thought, and Liam bulked up and Louis quieted down and Harry grew up and Zayn checked out and Niall was nervous, all the time.

"Do you feel up for some visitors?" Liam asked when the doctor was finished, had given him a vial of pills. "Only I don't think we can keep the fan club out any more."

And the four boys melted away, letting in Michael and Calum and Ashton and Luke, who were indignant and worried and angry, who'd written him a funny song, who disparaged the state of Calum's lent shirt, exclaiming over the blood. "At least you didn't have to go the hospital," Michael said, and Niall shuddered at the thought of the mobs that would excuse at a place with so many exits.

Then the band came in, Josh bringing him a sandwich and Gatoraid. Then makeup and security, everyone saying how glad they were that Niall was okay, how sorry that this had happened, and angry and upset on his behalf. Niall thanked them all by name.

"You're the best of us, Nialler," Liam said, helping Niall shower and re-bandage and change for bed, getting in next to him and listening to chants outside. "Everyone loves you."

There's be a shitstorm in the morning, already building on Twitter. There was another show tomorrow night. They needed to record, and smile, and be polite. And Niall would worry about all of that, he promised. Just - in the future. For now he let himself snuggle next to Liam and let Louis bring him tea and let Harry lean against his legs and let them tell him how much he was loved.


End file.
